Email
Suppose a leak fills a house with gas, and someone walks in and causes a stray spark that touches off an explosion and demolishes the house. Would you respond by denouncing the “heinous and offensive” spark as the cause? Or would it make more sense to identify the gas as the cause of the explosion, warn people not to enter and work to prevent gas leaks in the future?
The response by Susan Rice, our ambassador to the United Nations, as she made the rounds of the Sunday morning talk shows on Sept. 16, was a little like blaming the spark when she blamed a video for the turmoil in 33 Muslim countries over the last several days.
For example, when ABC’s Jake Tapper asked whether these events illustrate America’s impotence and unpopularity in the Islamic world, Rice denied we were unpopular or impotent and said, “What happened this week in Cairo, in Benghazi (Libya) and many other parts of the region was a result, a direct result, of a heinous and offensive video that was widely disseminated, that the U.S. government had nothing to do with, which we have made clear is reprehensible and disgusting.”
The video did it. No need to think about how to cope with the explosive combination of anti-American, Islamic extremism and jihadists seeking to exploit any offensive act.
A recent Pew Research Center study found that, since 2009, disapproval of America had risen from 74 percent to 86 percent in Jordan, 68 percent to 80 percent in Pakistan, and 70 percent to 79 percent in Egypt.
As for extremism, a December 2010 Pew survey found that over three-quarters of Egyptian Muslims believed that any Muslim guilty of “apostasy” (i.e., abandoning the Islamic faith) should be put to death. This is more than enough anti-Americanism and extremism for jihadists to ignite an explosion by making sure any offensive video or cartoon is indeed “widely disseminated.”
Unfortunately, coping with this explosive mixture in Islamic countries is far more complex than shutting off gas leaks, but the first step is to admit the problem is not just an offensive video. And we must never again leave American embassies and consulates inadequately defended, as they were in Libya, Egypt and elsewhere.
The second step is to develop a more assertive policy that stands up for American values and interests and doesn’t compromise with jihadism or extremism.
The third step is to proudly advocate for our First Amendment freedoms that permitted making the video, even if we didn’t particularly like the product.
Obviously we cannot dictate values and beliefs to Islamic nations, but we can make it clear that our relations with them will depend upon their moving toward more civilized behavior. For example, foreign aid must depend upon their cracking down on jihadists, respecting freedom of expression and religious freedom, and decent treatment of women.
There are no easy answers to this problem, but simply denouncing a video is no answer at all.
